Over the weekend, I was reading an article in the newspaper of The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, written by former Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) biologist Gerry Lavigne about how Maine needs to get the Canada lynx “unlisted” from federal protection of the Endangered Species Act. Lavigne’s claim is that it will not be as difficult a task to “unlist” vs. “delist”, claiming that the unlisting would come as the result of showing that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) made a mistake when they originally listed the Canada lynx as a threatened species. Lavigne writes: “It is time to unlist the lynx in Maine, and return management solely to DIFW. This is different from delisting, where the USFWS and anti-trapping and hunting zealots would retain their stranglehold on lynx management. We need to demonstrate that the USFWS erred in declaring that Maine lynx were threatened with extinction in the first place.”

Lavigne further explains that all that is needed is to present the already existing documentation that shows that the USFWS did not follow the rule of law to get the lynx protected in the first place. He then presents to readers what appears to be, from my perspective, an accurate accounting of what the USFWS did and recorded at the time. In short, it was a great piece of work by Lavigne and this is information that should be saved and referred to often.

However, there exists one giant roadblock of which, in my opinion, destroys any hope that “unlisting” the lynx would “not be as daunting a task as it sounds” – The Courts!

Lavigne accurately points out that the Courts forced the USFWS to list the Canada lynx in Maine as “Endangered”. In reality, it wasn’t that simple. Most people are sick and tired of beating the dead horse but in short, our corrupt government, influenced by corrupt environmental and anti hunting groups, and their deep pockets, attempted and was successful at convincing enough people that the head of the USFWS at the time was doing things illegally for political gain. The end result was The Courts forcing the USFWS to place the Canada lynx on the Endangered Species Act list of threatened and endangered species.

As Lavigne is pointing out, the USFWS did what The Courts forced them to do even if it meant fudging the data to come up with something. And so they did.

It may sound like “not as daunting a task” to go back to court and show the court the error of their ways. But aren’t we then calling upon the same corrupted and rigged system that protected the lynx illegally in the first place?

I may not fall in line with the majority of other readers and outdoor sportsmen when it comes to having faith in the court system of this country but history is history. We are witness to senseless court rulings and reversals that make absolutely no sense. Therefore, those decisions can only be considered as corrupt or carried out by incompetent persons; or a combination.

The Courts forced the USFWS to list the lynx. Are we now to believe that The Courts will say, “Ooops?” I don’t think so. Somebody might be successful enough to hand pick one judge that would rule sensibly, but The Courts are stacked because we operate within a rigged system. The roadblock will appear and in the meantime years go past while the issue is tied up in The Courts.

I have basically no faith in the Executive, the Legislative or the Judicial branches of THEIR de facto government. They operate, each of them, as self-serving, entities with no ties of responsibility to “we the people” and serve only “We the People”.

The trick is to find a connected insider who is willing to play along with the corruption and get, anyway possible, a bill through Congress, that overrides The Courts and/or The Endangered Species Act. If you want to play at their level then you must use their own rules of engagement.

Then and only then, will Maine get lynx delisted or unlisted….until the corrupt bastards figure out how to trump that piece of legislation with one of their own.

SUMMARY: We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), are issuing this final rule to comply with court orders that reinstate the regulatory protections under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as
amended (ESA), for the gray wolf (Canis lupus) in Wyoming and the western Great Lakes. Pursuant to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia court order dated September 23, 2014, this rule reinstates the April 2, 2009 (74 FR 15123), final rule regulating the gray wolf in the State of Wyoming as a nonessential experimental population. Gray wolves in Montana, Idaho, the eastern third of Washington and Oregon, and north-central Utah retain their delisted status and are not impacted by this final rule. In addition, pursuant to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia court order dated December 19, 2014, this rule reinstates the March 9, 1978 (43 FR 9607), final rule as it relates to gray wolves in the western Great Lakes including endangered status for gray wolves in all of Wisconsin and Michigan, the eastern half of North Dakota and South Dakota, the northern half of Iowa, the northern portions of Illinois and Indiana, and the northwestern portion of Ohio; threatened status for gray wolves in Minnesota; critical habitat for gray wolves in Minnesota and Michigan; and the rule promulgated under section 4(d) of the ESA for gray wolves in Minnesota.<<>>

Congress passed the Information Quality Act (IQA) in 2000 to implement and amend the Paperwork Reduction Act. The law requires federal agencies to ensure the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of the scientific, technical, and statistical information that federal agencies adopt and disseminate to the public. Although the law is nominally a procedural statute, this WORKING PAPER explains how regulated entities and other stakeholders can successfully seek judicial enforcement of the IQA when agencies rely upon flawed science for federal rules, and those rules impose paperwork, compliance, and other burdens.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is responsible for implementing the IQA. OMB’s IQA Guidelines required that each federal agency develop and adhere to their own IQA guidelines, and set out minimum criteria for scientific peer review of agency-drafted and third-party studies and scientific assessments, as well as criteria for the selection of peer reviewers. OMB dictated that these peer-review standards be especially rigorous for “highly influential scientific assessments.” Federal agencies must also provide an administrative review mechanism that will allow affected entities to seek correction of agency-disseminated information that was not adequately validated. Agencies routinely carry out this mandate by addressing requests for correction as part of their responses to public comments in a final regulation—an approach, the paper argues, that does not afford sufficient due process to stakeholders.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2009 greenhouse gas Endangerment Findings, and the decision-making process underlying them, offers an instructive IQA case study. A review of the extensive record and the peer review activities underlying the Findings reveals extensive violations of conflict-of-interest and other IQA-related standards. EPA also did not consider stakeholders’ challenges regarding these violations in a timely or sufficiently specialized manner. Stakeholders’ requests for reconsideration of the Findings were also rejected.

Stakeholders faced with such adverse, final agency actions would traditionally consider legal action against the responsible federal agency. As the WORKING PAPER explains, however, federal courts have been generally skeptical of regulated entities’ private causes of action to redress agencies’ noncompliance with IQA standards. Those complaints have foundered on plaintiffs’ standing to sue, as well as their assertion of a positive right to properly peer-reviewed government information.

This paper proposes an alternative approach to judicial enforcement of the IQA, one which addresses past lawsuits’ shortcomings. It explains this alternative approach in the context of a challenge to EPA’s violation of IQA during its development of the Endangerment Findings. The contemplated cause of action is based on the theory that Congress intended that the IQA, as an implementation of the Paperwork Reduction Act, protect the negative right of a designated class of persons not to be burdened, financially or otherwise, by poor quality science that agencies disseminate in support of major regulations. The lawsuit would formally be brought as an action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

Fueled by decades of ineffective oversight, federal agencies’ respect for science and the scientific process has severely diminished. For that reason, one can easily foresee many potential applications of the enforcement framework offered in this paper. Other actions by EPA where stakeholders have strongly questioned the supporting science could be particularly inviting targets as well. They include: EPA’s “Waters of the United States” proposal; its social cost of carbon proposal; its proposed ozone regulations; its NEPA review of the Keystone XL pipeline; its study on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing; and EPA and NOAA disapproval of state coastal nonpoint pollution control programs. Another possible target could be the Fish and Wildlife Service’s threatened or endangered species designations.<<<Get Full Study>>>

Here is the text of the bill H.R. 884, sponsored by Rep. Reid Ribble. It is simple and to the point. It calls for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reissue the Final Rule that delisted gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes and Wyoming (separately) and that in both cases, “Such reissuance shall not be subject to judicial review.”

This bill has been sent to the House Committee on Natural Resources and was introduced on the House Floor.

“Bills are generally sent to the Library of Congress from the Government Publishing Office a day or two after they are introduced on the floor of the House or Senate. Delays can occur when there are a large number of bills to prepare or when a very large bill has to be printed.”

This is the current status of Rep. Reid Ribble’s bill, H.R. 884. His proposal is supposed to take the gray wolf off the endangered list and put management control back into the hands of the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Wyoming.

There’s been a lot of talk about this bill but I’m waiting impatiently for the actual text of the bill in order to determine what, if any, value it has.

“Settled Landscapes” is a term both mellifluous and of primary importance as I write this in early 2015. It is especially important to the rural residents of the Lower 48 States of the United States and the rural inhabitants of the European continent.

I first became actually aware of the term and its’ importance about ten years ago while learning all I could and writing about wolves and grizzly bears, two large and impactful predators that had been declared “Endangered” for a wide range of hidden agendas and that therefore were being forcibly imposed by federal fiat and power on a growing area of rural America in the Lower 48 States.

I was reading some comments by Dr. Val Geist, a retired Canadian University Professor, Ecologist and Wildlife Biologist par excellence. He was making the simple, yet undeniable, statement that given a long list of very negative effects on humans, human communities, human economies and the wolves themselves; his words, “wolves do not belong in ‘Settled Landscapes’” not only caught my attention but have rung ever more true over the years. Although I have never met Dr. Geist, I have learned more from him over the years through frequent communications and collaborations.

So, what is a “Settled Landscape”?

To the environmental extremist, it might be the buildings on Manhattan Island, but not Central Park itself. It might be New York City’s 5 Boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens and Staten Island) but not Long Island or Westchester County. It might be the Eastern Seaboard but not everything West of the Appalachians and East of California, Oregon and Washington State.

To an old Alaskan bachelor trapper, it might be everything South of the 60th Parallel that roars out of the Bering Sea by Nunivak Island heading East just North of the Alaskan Peninsula and Skagway to make the Northern Border of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Many older Alaskans still see those lands South of that Parallel as what they once called a century ago, the place of the Cheechakoes or those that were new to or recent arrivals in the “real” Alaska.

To many urban Americans, it might be all of the Lower 48 States outside the current edges of suburban sprawl form the metropolitan center they tell others from far away they are “from”.

To politicians, it is where (like Willie Sutton the notorious bank robber once answered the question in prison about why he kept robbing banks and answered matter-of-factly “because that is where the money is”) the “votes are”.

To the government bureaucrats it is anything they want to make of it or even ignore it in the regulations they write under the burgeoning authorities they reap as present-day politicians pass law after law to garner the votes and financial support of the urban worthies who see the results as affecting only those places and bumpkins outside the urban sprawl surrounding where they live.

What, you might be asking, did I see of such importance in Dr. Geist’s observation? What I saw was the simple and undeniable truth that as humans advance, order and improve their living conditions and communities certain animals that once occurred in those now “settled landscapes” must of necessity be either controlled at certain levels (i.e. big game, furbearers, upland game) or eliminated in those “settled landscapes”. Some examples of animals that can become incompatible with growing or advancing human societies and therefore call for management controls on their numbers and distributions, or for their elimination would be:

* Elephants in areas of agriculture where their wanderings destroy crops and endanger children and elderly persons as they pass through inhabited sites as free-roaming buffalo once did and would do again if imposed on rural residents of the Lower 48 States.

* Poisonous snakes, constrictors, poisonous spiders and frogs, etc. that reside in or near and wander into human living sites.

* Animals that carry and transmit diseases and infections like tapeworms, hoof-and-mouth, plague, rabies, anthrax, etc. like wolves and coyotes that endanger human lives or property such as livestock, valued wildlife or dogs.

* Animals that compete for forage with livestock or game animals; or that destroy haystacks, orchards or food-producing plants like elk and deer.

* Animals that denude property of plants and are responsible for deadly disease outbreaks or that make holes that cause livestock and humans to injure themselves like prairie dogs.

* Animals that are unpredictable and present threats to humans from rural children and the elderly to hikers, campers, joggers, dog walkers, hunters and other rural recreationists and workers like grizzly bears, cougars and wolves.

Uncontrolled large predators like grizzly bears, wolves, cougars or panthers, jaguars, coyotes, or black bears that kill and attack people, destroy livestock operations, kill dogs and other pets, carry diseases and infections dangerous to humans and other animals, generally make rural life regress toward what Thomas Hobbes described in his 1588 book, Leviathan, as “the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

It is entirely sensible to recognize and address these conflicts with wild animals as matters to be reckoned with as “landscapes” are “settled”. Tolerance for large predators was the only option for Native American communities before European settlers arrived; just like tolerance for large predators in and around “landscapes” being settled by Europeans with primitive guns and almost no other means of reducing the growing conflicts they experienced as “settlement” began and continued to grow was the only option. As settlement grew and intensified; awareness of human dangers, livestock losses and rudimentary recognition of the health dangers to humans and desirable animals escalated with the sophistication and intensity of control of certain species that could be tolerated like black bears and cougars, and the elimination of those that could NOT be tolerated due to their inherent and uncontrollable danger to humans and the extent of their destruction to human communities and their economies like wolves and grizzly bears.

The tolerance for some species like black bears, cougars and coyotes was composed of many aspects from the difficulties inherent in trying to rid any area of coyotes to the behavior of low-density black bear and cougar populations to generally avoid humans and human communities WHEN THEY ARE HUNTED, TRAPPED AND OCCSIONALLY SHOT AT thereby making them what we call “shy” and “furtive”. Wolves and grizzly bears exhibit no such tendencies. Wolves and grizzly bears persist as dangers to humans and as behaving in exceedingly destructive ways to all manner of human interests no matter their density or the densities of humans IN SETTLED LANDSCAPES.

But, what is a settled landscape? A “Settled Landscape” is all of the Lower 48 States with three exceptions.

The first exception to “settled landscapes” is the POLITICAL exception. This exception is often mentioned regarding the Yellowstone’s (i.e. National Parks); the “National” Forests/Refuges/ BLM et al lands; the “Declarations” and Executive Orders decreeing “Wildernesses”, “Sanctuaries”, and “Preservation”/”Scenic”/”Historic” et al Areas: and the two clearly and exclusively federal land holdings that elude any State jurisdiction, i.e. the District of Columbia and all “Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock yards, and other needful Buildings” as mentioned in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution. These are, with only three exceptions, NOT exceptions in any legal or Constitutional sense to definition as “Settled Landscapes” as those landscapes “settled” under the authority, jurisdiction, protection and government authority of that State in which they occur.

A “Settled Landscape” is legally and Constitutionally ANY and all land in the Lower 48 States (Alaska is an exception due to the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act and I am unfamiliar with the State/Federal relationship in Hawaii) under the authority and jurisdiction of the people and government of THAT STATE. Unless a State relinquishes its’ sovereignty and authority over any land within the state to the federal government, the federal government’s ownership of National Parks, National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, BLM lands, and all other “Declarations” and “Orders” are subject to State laws. In other words, although federal agencies that “own” parcels of lands within a State are not required to pay State and Local Taxes to the State and Local governments they are subject to State authority like other landowners, with only three exceptions:
1. Yellowstone National Park was placed under the jurisdiction of the US Army and withdrawn from the Territory of Wyoming in 1872, 4 years after becoming a Territory in 1868 and 18 years before it became a State in 1890. It therefore remained independent of the State of Wyoming and was transferred to the National Park Service in 1917. Other National Parks outside The District of Columbia are. Like their counterpart National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, et al, merely landowners of property subject to state jurisdiction. The federal government exercises what is called “Exclusive Jurisdiction” over Yellowstone similar to:

2. The District of Columbia as defined in the US Constitution, and:

3. The “Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful Buildings” (i.e. Department of Defense lands when taken and maintained as properties “needful” for national defense but not when sold off or given to political patrons like environmental groups or transferred to federal agencies.

The foregoing is an explanation of POLITICAL claims of exemption from the commonly understood concept of “settled landscapes”. In other words, “Settled Landscape” not only includes (politically) land with a certain density of “settlers”; it covers all the lands that were, are or could be “settled” under the auspices, protection and laws of the state within which they lie. Federal agencies (with the 3 exceptions above), while landowners within the State, can close certain areas or roads or uses in accordance with the laws of the state governing all land owners in the state, they are not free to introduce animals prohibited within the state or to kill or trap animals within the state outside state authority unless they have specific permits to do so. Now read that again and ask yourself, – “HOW did the federal Congress and President and Supreme Court contrive and invent the ‘power’ to simply say ‘wolves will be here and grizzly bears will be there’? If I own a ranch with deer on it, I can’t just shoot deer in my crops or haystacks the year-around without a state permit any more than the federal government can just decide to kill or poison certain birds or fish or mammals on federal lands (with the aforementioned 3 exceptions). I can no more decide to introduce and release lions or jaguars on my ranch without state authority than can federal bureaucrats decide to release wolves or grizzly bears on their lands. If my dogs get loose and bite your kid or kill your foal or kill grandma out by the mailbox or chase down your son on his bike or kill your dog on your porch or run your sheep over a cliff, etc.: why am I held responsible for compensation and subject to incarceration AND FEDERAL BUREAUCRATS LOOSING WOLVES AND GRIZZLY BEARS ON OUR “SETTLED LANDSCAPES” THAT DO THE SAME THINGS ARE NOT??

The second exception to “settled landscapes” is the BIOLOGICAL exception. There is biologically no exception to the concept of “settled landscapes” be it the Chicago Loop Area or the Big Hole Valley of Western Montana. Each has a human community engaged in whatever supports healthy families, children, elderly members and the community services they need and can afford. Each has dogs and wild birds and furbearers (raccoons, skunks, etc.): each has predators like coyotes: each has available fishing and netting (smelt): and each prohibits those animals that are dangerous like poisonous snakes, constrictors, and alligators; each controls those animals that are destructive (rats, coyotes, foxes, skunks, pigeons, etc.); and each encourages desirable species like songbirds, waterfowl, and rabbits.

Notice that residents of the Big Hole Valley in Western Montana (a vast area of large ranches and few people) has trouble with species like wolves that kill cows and calves and sheep and lambs and dogs but they can neither control the wolves nor eliminate the wolves as was the case for many happy and productive decades before federal laws and federal interlopers put wolves back in The Big Hole and cowed the State bureaucracy into not only acquiescing but also in singing a duet about how wolves only kill the old and sick; wolves don’t kill livestock or reduce big game numbers; and wolves will restore stream banks and make the lame walk, the blind see and generally clean up the air and the water. We must ask ourselves, if the Chicago Loop and the State of Illinois can manage the wildlife under their authority, why can’t Montana and The Big Hole do the same? Under what authority in a just and Constitutional Republic with a Constitution can the federal government simply decide to put deadly and destructive animals into one “settled landscape” and not another? Finally, why does the federal government choose to exercise this questionable and unjust authority in The Big Hole of Montana and not, Stowe, Vermont or Napa Valley, California?

The remaining biological aspect of exceptions to the “settled landscapes” concept is the one being used by every charlatan politician for the past 40 years; that is excluding places that (reputedly) “need” protection. This may be a desert area (like the California deserts long milked incrementally for political support and votes by the two ancient US Senators from that State) or it may be an expanse of ocean recently made into a “Sanctuary” by a Presidential Executive Order or an Alaskan oil-rich area or a Utah low-sulfur coal deposit set aside from any future exploitation by Presidents looking for adulation or to divert public attention from other matters: all of them have in common that 99% of the population neither knows nor care what is happening, they only “feel good” that such vacant space or unsettled landscape is being “saved”.

Be it vast tundra, desert lands, mountaintops or an arbitrary expanse of ocean; the concept of it being “unsettled” or never being “settled” is unsupportable biologically. Even the mountain tops and ocean visited infrequently by hunters, geologists or fishermen are connected to the “settlements” from whence these men come. Like the desert and tundra are connected to and utilized by men for transportation and sparsely-settled communities, who is to say they are independent of adjoining settlements human activities biologically?

To conclude, all this is very relevant to the USA and the European Continent where the same things (forcible wolf presence and gradual elimination of animal control for human benefit) are being perpetrated by the EU in Brussels with the same enablers and incentives that we see being imposed by the federal government in Washington, DC. As in the USA, real political or biological exceptions to the “settled landscape” concept are rare to non-existent though frequently mentioned and inferred.

The presence or absence of various wildlife species; the abundance and distribution of wildlife; the costs and revenue sources for management and control of wildlife; the uses of wildlife; and the authority over wildlife in “Settled Landscapes” should always rest with and remain with the LOWEST level of government THAT REPRESENTS THOSE HUMANS AND HUMAN COMMUNITIES LIVING IN THE SETTLED LANDSCAPES AFFECTED BY SUCH ACTIONS AND WHO ARE ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR DETERMINING AND ENDURING THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS. The only practicable exceptions to this rule of law in the Lower 48 States are Yellowstone National Park and large Department of Defense landholdings.

Dr. Geist, in discussing alternative sites for wolves (and by my extension grizzly bears) often mentions large, FENCED government reservation like nuclear power plants, military lands, etc., as practicable sites: though such contained wildlife communities would require intense and expensive perpetual management to sustain. When considering “reservations” or “refuges” for animals like wolves and grizzly bears in “settled landscapes” it must be recognized that visitors to Yellowstone, or defense sites made available to the public, and resident workers are in danger and the questions of liability for injuries ON SITE and the disposition of animals OFF SITE ought to be established before any release on the excepted area adjoining any settled landscape. Impacts on defense operations and facilities in such locations would have to be carefully measured and evaluated as well as protected from likely future behavioral adjustments by such animals There cannot be any arguable business about wolf control outside Yellowstone affecting Yellowstone wolves or their pack structure if that is what the residents of the settled landscapes adjoining the Park deem is in their best interest when such animals stray back under State and Local authority and jurisdiction.

“Wolves”, like far-off powerful government dictates about plants and animals like grizzly bears, “do not belong in ‘Settled Landscapes’.” It is a testimony to American and Canadian ethics that wolves and grizzly bears have been maintained in Alaska and much of Canada to date. Likewise it is a testament to European concern that supporting a similar “rewilding” of the European continent is occurring. That said, the presence or absence of either dangerous or destructive animals must, in the final analysis, be the responsibility of those living in the “Settled Landscapes” affected by these species be they Chicago Loop picnickers or French shepherds.

If there is to be any hope for such animals in the future; only the continuing acquiescence of those living with these animals in their “Settled Landscape” and the continued financial support of those from elsewhere desiring the presence of these animals in the “Settled Landscapes” where others live, gives any hope of anything but a repeat of the historic accounts of the inevitable human reaction to these animals since the time of the Ancient Greeks and The Thirteen Original Colonies of what is now the USA. That is to say intolerable incident after incident until; despite Washington, despite Brussels, despite the King, despite the Lord of the Manor; the residents of the “Settled Landscapes” decide they have had enough and take things into their own hands and using a wide range of methods and even some new ones not even seen before once again make the “Settled Landscapes” safe and productive for human settlements.

Jim Beers
14 February 2015

If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net

The Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team (IFT) has completed its annual year-end population survey, documenting a minimum of 109 Mexican wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico at the end of 2014. At the end of 2013, 83 wild wolves were counted. This is the fourth consecutive year with at least a 10 percent increase in the known population – a 31 percent increase in 2014.

“In 1982, the Mexican wolf recovery team recommended a population of at least 100 animals in the wild as a hedge against extinction; until we initiated the first releases in 1998, there had been no Mexican wolves in the wild in the United States since the 1970s,” said Southwest Regional Director Benjamin Tuggle. “Although there is still much to be done, reaching this milestone is monumental!”

“This survey demonstrates a major accomplishment in Mexican wolf recovery. In 2010, there were 50 Mexican wolves in the wild; today there are 109, a more than doubling of the population in Arizona and New Mexico. With our Mexican wolf population consisting of wild-born wolves, we expect the growth rates observed this year to continue into the future. In spite of considerable naysaying, our 10(j) program has been a success because of on-the-ground partnerships. We have every reason to believe that our efforts at reintroduction will continue to be successful,” said Arizona Game and Fish Director Larry Voyles.

In spring of 2014, the Interagency Field Team (IFT) successfully implemented a field technique in which genetically valuable pups were transferred to a similarly aged litter of an established pack. During the count operation, the IFT captured one of the two pups that were placed in the established pack during 2014, which confirmed this “cross-fostering” technique as an additional method for the IFT to improve the genetics of the wild population. In addition, the IFT conducted 14 releases and translocations during 2014, some of which provide promise for improving the wild population’s genetic health in the future.

“Testing and implementing new management techniques, such as cross-fostering, can help us improve the genetics of the wild population,” said Tuggle. The experimental population is growing – now our strategy is to focus on establishing a genetically robust population on a working landscape.”

The results of the surveys reflect the end-of-year minimum population for 2014. Results come from population data collected on the ground by the IFT from November through December of 2014, as well as data collected from an aerial survey conducted in January and February 2015. This number is considered a minimum number of Mexican wolves known to exist in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico, as other Mexican wolves may be present but uncounted during surveys.

The aerial survey was conducted by a fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter. Biologists used radiotelemetry and actual sightings of wolves to help determine the count. The results from the aerial survey, coupled with the ground survey conducted by the IFT, confirmed that there are a total of 19 packs, with a minimum of 53 wolves in New Mexico and 56 wolves in Arizona. The current survey documented 14 packs that had at least one pup that survived through the end of the year, with two that had at least five surviving through the end of the year.

The 2014 minimum population count includes 38 wild-born pups that survived through the end of the year. This is also considered a minimum known number since it might not reflect pups surviving but not documented.

The Mexican wolf recovery program is a partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Game and Fish Department, White Mountain Apache Tribe, USDA Forest Service and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service – Wildlife Services, and several participating counties. For more information on the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Program, visit http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/ or www.azgfd.gov/wolf.

The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation has filed an appeal of the ruling handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell on Dec. 20 concerning management of gray wolves in the western Great Lakes area.

The Feb. 13 notice of appeal seeks to overturn the ruling that forced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to return a population of wolves found in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan to the protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act – with ramifications that affect the entire scope of managing the apex predator. The decision stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Humane Society of the United States; Born Free, USA; Help Our Wolves Live; and Friends of Animals and Their Environment.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to continue to fight this legal battle,” said Evan Heusinkveld, USSA’s vice president of government affairs. “There is no doubt that wolves in the region have recovered, but to hold their management in those states hostage until wolves are reestablished in Central Park in New York City is ludicrous and we will continue to fight it.”

The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and our partners, collectively known as the “Hunter Conservation Coalition,” will fight for sportsmen’s rights, as well as for a state’s right to scientifically manage wildlife found within their borders.

THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW! Not really but isn’t that usually the cry we hear when things don’t go the way we have been brainwashed to think they should?

We’ve been hearing about PROPOSED bills that would remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act in the Great Lakes region. I’m tired of hearing about all the promises that are going to be in this bill. I’m not that stupid. I’ve been down this lousy road before. Bill titles and false promises get people on all sides revved up and squawking like a gaggle of geese. The reality is all too often that the actual text of the bill is useless drivel, written so most can’t understand (not that it matters, they never read the bill anyway).

So, let’s see the text of the bill already! Why do these clowns get to spend weeks spreading what, more than likely, will turn out to be lies and more lies, when they can’t, don’t, won’t share their proposal until after a formal submission….if then? Are they hiding something? This is the same tactic President Obama is using in his plan to seize full control and censorship of the Internet. WHAT’S IN THE BILL?!?

It’s fun for some to get all worked up over this supposed wolf bill proposal that’s been talked about from Congressman Reid Ribble, and yet none of us knows what’s in it. If we pay attention to the tidbits of information being said about the bill, it might give us some hints.

For instance, in this news article, Mr. Ribble is quoted as saying, “My bill doesn’t have anything to do with the Endangered Species Act. It just says a court should not be making a determination. And, in fact, if the population [wolves] decreases the Fish and Wildlife Service can re-list the wolf at any time.”

What’s he saying here? Looks to me like he is suggesting that the Courts will longer be able to make any rulings on wolves in those states listed in this bill….whichever ones those are. What I find troubling is that he says that if the wolf population decreases, the Feds can relist anytime they want to.

So Ribble, if this is what’s in his bill, is tossing blindly all his support and ceding all power to the decisions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service(USFWS). Really? Those corrupt, agenda driven clowns? I see the USFWS as being really no different than the Humane Society of the United States, Midwest Environmental Advocates or any of the well-greased groups that steal their money from the taxpayers of this country. USFWS history shows their constant and consistent caving in to pressures from environmental groups.

If this bill doesn’t contain the right language, then what a waste of time. The idiot wolf lovers have pushed and demanded for so long, taking advantage of and bastardizing any semblance of law and order to get their way and more, when it comes to wolves. And now people have had enough. Screw em!

Not only would I make it so leeches can’t make their living filing lawsuits, I would permanently remove the wolf from Federal protection and disallow the USFWS any say in the future events that surround the wolf. We mustn’t forget that these criminals at the USFWS created this mess in the first place. They lied to the American people and foisted a plague upon the people and land.

It appears to me this secret proposed wolf bill does nothing but give USFWS dictator status. Way to go!

“If you applied the Florida panther math to the Maine lynx, trappers would be permitted to accidentally take 50 to 100 lynx a year and not impact the population appreciably. And yet, USFWS, in collaboration with Maine’s state wildlife managers, is restricting Maine’s incidental take to .006 percent of the lynx population – not over a year – but over 15 years! Really now, does this pass the straight face test?”<<<Read More>>>